Hi all, There was considerable discussion in San Juan amongst various ALAC members that it would be a good idea to plan for a Summit to gather reps from all of ICANN's At-Large Structures in one place. In parallel with the regular ICANN conference, the Summit will provide a program designed to: 1) Educate ALSs about ICANN functions, methods and culture 2) Help ALS representatives interact with their constituents on ICANN-related issues 3) Assist ALSs and RALOs in developing locally-relevant policy positions 4) Exchange ideas and perspectives related to the ICANN At-Large community 5) Energize participants, to keep the energy of the Summit going long after the last day of the conference {More ideas welcome, here} Our goal here is to get the help and input of people within the global At-Large community who want to make the Summit happen. Actually, if ICANN does not see support from the global community for this, it definitely will not happen. So, I've put this e-mail out to all of At-Large. If you wish to assist with the Summit, please let us know and sign up to our planning-committee list: http://groups.google.com/group/icann-summit. We would also like to take this time to encourage discussion about the pros and cons of having a summit at all. A notice similar to this one has gone out on the Secretariat's list, as was suggested during the ALAC meetings in San Juan but, so far, the uptake as been rather minimal. If this is something that only the NARALO wishes to see happen, then it should be allowed to die quietly now. If not, then we have lots of work to do to make it all come together and we have to let ICANN know that we want it! Cheers, Darlene Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-6531 Fax: (867) 979-8870 dthompson@gov.nu.ca